Gamescom traditionally doesnât have that many new game announcements, but thereâs always one or two debuts at least. There was FIFA Street from EA , which was completely unknown until this week, but thereâs also the first public (well, behind closed doors) showing of the sequel to Gearboxâs surprise hit shooter. A follow-up that looked unsurprisingly good.

If youâre not familiar with the first game itâs a fairly easy one to describe: a first person shooter with a heavy emphasis on collectible loot â primarily millions of different guns, all procedurally generated from key components. While mixing elements of Diablo style dungeon crawler with a traditional shooter it further distinguished itself with its four-player co-operative mode, stylish cel-shaded graphics and loveably black humour.

Naturally all those elements return for the sequel, but where the original was a little low tech and rough around the edges â a victim of the low budget that was necessary to risk releasing it in the Christmas rush of 2009 â the new game seeks to improve every element, particularly the scope of the graphics, the variety of the weapons and the scope of the graphics and game world.

Before the demo started though all the assembled jurnos were thanked very profusely for talking up the original game (apparently it also made its debut at Gamescom, we didnât have the heart to mention weâve never been before). Itâs also quickly pointed out that the impetus for the original game was to buck the trend of endless sequels, and yet ironically here is one anyway.

Even the biggest fan of the original will admit it was far from perfect and so thereâs plenty of scope for improvement. In fact according to Gearbox every major element has been improved, from the enemy artificial intelligence to the gun system, the quest system, co-op system, user interface system â if it was a system it has apparently been replaced or overhauled.

This is demonstrated to us onscreen by showing a section of gameplay from around a third into game, after youâve been left for dead by someone called Handsome Jack. Naturally you want revenge, but that will have to wait until after youâve fought through a wave of yeti-like monsters called Bullymongs, in the snowy wastes of Marrowfield.

Although the creatures arenât particularly intelligent they are possessed of some natural cunning, always aiming for the high ground so they can jump attack you and picking up objects â such as wrecked vehicles â to throw at you. They also react different when injured and you can see them stagger and become stunned, before thinking better of their aggression and running away.

Weapons still litter the game world and the first one to be picked up is from manufacturer Tediore, who are described as the âWal-Mart of gun manufacturersâ. So much so that empty weapons are just thrown away when youâre finished with them and another unwrapped from its cellophane to replace it.

The next kind of weapon is very different: a DIY bandit gun that looks like itâs held together with sticky-back plastic but actually seems to prove very useful. Bandits apparently arenât great mechanics but they are keen on fitting their weapons with oversized ammo clips, greatly reducing the frequency with which you have to reload.

A bandit vehicle is then stolen, demonstrating the new handling and physics engine – which looks a lot more realistic, especially when youâre running over a monster. With the increased forward momentum the demo moves into a more temperate zone, where the ice is melting and huge drills are drilling. Theyâre an attractive bit of background detail and apparently evidence of an attempt to have much more animated backdrops.

More impressive still is when you get to the top of a large dam and you can see much of the game world spread out in front of you. But where previously this wouldâve just been a static graphic here you can travel to and visit anything you see.

After that spot of sight-seeing though itâs back to the action and working through a camp of psychos. The mid-boss here is a Nomad which has a midget psycho tied to his shield. Apparently Nomads hate midgets, so as soon as itâs loosened from its prison by your attack the two start fighting amongst themselves, to comically bloody effect.

With the extra experience obtained from defeating the Nomad the new upgrade system is briefly shown. At this point it becomes clear that the Salvador character unveiled earlier in the month is the one being played in the demo. Not only is the upgrade interface considerably more swish than before but itâs been simplified for non-role-playing fans to use, while changing most of the upgrades from simple stat buffs to more unique new skills called âgame changersâ.

The slightly vague example given is of improving Salvadorâs dual-wielding weapons ability, while a Siren character that you run into later apparently doesnât have the classâ signature phasewalk ability. Instead all the Sirens in the game have different abilities â although unfortunately Gearbox werenât willing to say what any of them were.

The final part of the demo involved an attack of robots being launched from an orbital base, which casts a giant âHâ on the moon behind it. As with all the enemies thereâs a great deal of subtle, and not so subtle, variety between them â with the robots varying in size and weapons, from melee attacks to missiles.

Thereâs also a side quest target pootering about the level â some sort of portable robot generator with a prisoner tied to the top. Itâs relatively easy to track down but if you donât then your access to other quests and the journey through the story is slightly altered.

Thereâs no fundamental shift in approach in Borderlands 2, but there didnât have to be. Giving the original a heavy dose of spit and polish is exactly whatâs needed and this is certainly one shooter sequel that seems perfectly justified in providing more of the same, but better.

As well getting the pre-prepared spiel about the game we also managed to corner concept artist Scott Kester and ask him about the game, and some of the peculiar demands made of it by fansâ¦

GC:Judging by your demo it seems you guys at Gearbox were surprised, or relived, by the originalâs success. Why do you think it succeeded where so many other non-sequel, non-licenced games have failed.

SK:Well, I think thereâs a few things: the fact that we tried to take a solid shooter mechanic and a solid role-playing game mechanic just kind of created something that aspects had been done in other games, but I donât think they had been put together like that. And then to top it off I like to think the look of the game helped it stand out a little bit as well. Iâd say those three components, the actual game design but taking from a couple of different genres and sort of smashing them together set us apart and got people talking.

GC: It almost seems perverse that it was an original game that did well and yet it was still a first person shooter. What were you originally setting out to do with the first game?

SK:From the very start the sort of concept was always Halo meets Diablo, that was always the number one goal. Just to get that sort of loot mechanic but with the solid first person shooter sort of side of it. That definitely wasnât an accident, but the art style â that wasnât planned but sort of was our biggest, âWhere did that come from?â kind of thing.

GC:We think youâre right, the art style was a great deal of the appeal. And yet weâve noticed some people online still âhopingâ that the art style will be changed to something more mundane and realistic. Where you ever tempted to do that or does that sound as peculiar to you as it does to us?

SK:No, yeah. We made the choice for very obvious reasons and I hope (laughs) I thank you for sticking up for that, but we wanted to stand apart and no, we donât plan to change anything (laughs).

GC:We donât understand how you could like Borderlands and yet still want to change the art style, itâs one of its most distinguishing featuresâ¦

SK:Yeahâ¦ one of the things about the art is it really complements the way the game plays. If you remove that (laughs) itâs not the same game.

GC:The other thing the demo seemed to do is emphasis the sense of humour. There seems to be quite a bit more dialogue this time around, is that right?

SK:Yeah, one thing is weâre just trying to get as much character into all the components of the game. You donât want to do too much because it just become repetitive, but there are obviously things we wanted to expand on more that we ran out of time with the first time or decisions we had made.Â So weâre really just trying to liven up the world, trying to make it feel more active. More dialogue, but hopefully not so much that itâs like, âShut up!ââ but we want to make it a little more distinct. If it makes people laugh too it helps.

GC:Again, itâs just different.

SK:I think thereâs a lot of very serious games and I think that weâre serious but thereâs a little bit of a really dark sense of humour that kind of prevails on top of that.

GC:What would you say the other big changes were for the sequel?

SK:One of the major things we really wanted to do was just variety, variety of environments and enemies and weaponry and gear. And characters. Weâre going to try and make the weapons manufacturers feel unique to themselves, so if you have a distinctive style of play that you enjoy you can sort of associate yourself with that, and just having diversity and integrating the actual story a lot deeper into the environment so itâs not just, âGo here, go there. Do this, do that.â Itâs much moreâ¦

GC:Weâll be honest weâve no idea what the original story was.

SK:(laughs) We get a lot of that. We didnât want to beat you over the head with it, but it took a little bit of a back seat in the last game and in this one weâre putting more of that in there and hopefully itâll be a bit more memorable.

GC:Itâs set on the same planet isnât?

SK:Yes, itâs set five years later. Some things have changed, characters from the first game may or may not be in there but the world is getting a little more diverse as far as weâre youâre going and who youâre talking to.

GC:Is there more visual character customisation, that seemed one thing that was a little disappointing in the first one â just changing the colour of their T-shirts.

SK:I (laughs) we canât talk specifically but thatâs something weâre definitely looking at and itâs a goal of ours that weâre working on. I would love to go more in depth with that but I canât at this point.

GC:Obviously the co-op was a big element of the original game. Is thereâ¦ was there competitive multiplayer in the original game? We donât rememberâ¦

SK:We had arenas you could kind of go intoâ¦

GC:Oh yes.

SK:I mean, it was never our main focus but it was there. You could duel each other but it wasâ¦

GC:Is that something youâre looking to expand for the sequel?

SK:Itâs something weâre looking into, weâre doing some work in that area, but thatâs another thing I canât really go into.

GC:Something like Horde mode would probably be a good fit for the game?

SK:Yeah. Weâre more about the co-operative nature of the game and thatâs something weâre really kind of sticking to as our first and foremost, instead of trying to develop everyone at one time. Not that we donât want to keep inventing (laughs) but itâs somethingÂ where we really want to strengthen what we have and really make those promises more fulfilled than the last time.

GC:If there are yet more sequels after that and the whole thing becomes a big ongoing franchise, whatâs the master plan? Do you want this to be seen as the co-operative shooter?

SK:We have more ideas than we know what to do with this game. Thereâs just things we canât get to. Itâs kind of hard to really speculate far in the future. Weâre just hoping people take to the game as well as they took to the first one but weâre obviously always thinking of the future. But if we do the future of just constant innovation, making sure weâre not constantly repeating ourselves.

GC:Are there already ideas that youâve come up with that you know wonât make it into this sequel?

SK:Itâs one of those things like, Iâm one of the conceptual designers on the project and we just create so much content and ideas that obviously we canât put it all in. Everybodyâs got something. Itâs one of those things that made Borderlands special I think, there was a lot of individual character of all the different people on the development team putting themselves in the thing. Thereâs things already we know, they donât fit into the type of story. The design of what we want just made some things impossible forâ¦

GC:Can you give some specific examples?

SK:(laughs) Just areas and zones, things like that. Thereâsâ¦ I donât know. Itâs one of those things were it still might make it into the game so I better not.

GC:Just a last question, the âHâ on the moon. Is that a reference to The Tick?

SK:(laughs) Actually, I wish it was. Itâs the main antagonist of the game. Itâs the Hyperion âHâ in the sky.

GC:So itâs not Chairface Chippendale?

SK:Itâs awesome you knew that (laughs). Unfortunately it is not, maybe we can work something in there (laughs). Thatâs awesome.

GC:Thank you very much, we know you hadnât planned to do this interview.